Monthly Archives: May 2009

Earlier today, went to my local post office to mail a letter and buy some stamps. I spent about 45 minutes standing in line with a dozen other people.

There were two tellers working out front. One was a young chap who didn’t really count, as he was tied up the entire time with a couple who were apparently there to negotiate an international treaty. The other was an elderly lady who had no business being there; she was not particularly quick or attentive, and between every customer she shambled out of the room for a few seconds – presumably to summon help from the legion of Post Office workers who were banging away in the back. It was to no avail, as nobody joined her…

I am not upset at these two; they were good people, doing the best that they could under trying circumstances. I am, however, incensed that there was no available help when demand exceeded supply. I was not the only one. One of those in line muttered something about making reservations, another lamented that not bringing a sleeping bag. I remarked that this made Wal-Mart look good, and that if Kroger’s tried this in their stores they would be bankrupt in a week.

So why do Postmasters behave like this? Because they can. The Post Office is effectively a monopoly; they can get away with stuff because you have nowhere else to go.

On Monday, when I was on my way home, The gas stations were selling petrol for about $1.95, except for one that is always more expensive that was at $2.09. Let’s ignore the outlier and go with $1.95.

On Tuesday morning I noticed that one of them had gone to $2.35. By the end of the day all were at that level, except for the odd one out, who was now sitting pretty at $2.45.

Ignoring the outlier (who is always 10-15c more expensive than everybody else), By my FITA* calculations, $1.95 to $2.35 is about a 20% price hike.

In one day.

And nobody said a thing.

Let’s contrast that with the recent “tragedies” on the stock market. According to this page, the only bigger one-day drops in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average were in 1914 (24% though this figure is not considered reliable) and Black Monday in 1987 (22%). The only recent drops of note were a measly 7-8% each:

September 29th 2008

October 9th 2008

October 15th 2008

Since March 9th, The DJIA has risen from 6547 to over 8400. That means that the market went up by over 25%

And nobody said a thing.

But when the Dow drops by 7%, the newsies trot out all of the doom-and-gloom-merchants predicting the end of the world.

What’s wrong with this picture? And why is it that a one-day 5% drop in the Dow makes headlines while a one-day 20% rise in gas prices does not even merit a byline?